El Barto
👍
I just got back from 4 days with the Carpenters Fellowship where we embarked on Phase 3 of a project they've been working on - building a large Anglo-Saxon hall from scratch.
Basically, the foundations for a similar hall dating back to that period were discovered and so they have decided to recreate it on-site, to the best of their knowledge of the original at least.
I figured I'd post about it as some of you may find it interesting - I sure did. Aside from enjoying the making side of things, it was worth it for the wealth of knowledge a lot of these guys have alone.
Here's a rendering (courtesy of the CF) of the final design:
Uncut timbers. These were all hand hewn in the previous phases :shock:
Most of my time was spent chopping mortice and tenons for the enormous plates, a slow process with a mortice axe but one that can give surprisingly accurate results.
Once the mortices were done, we moved onto tenons and lap joints. The laps were particularly challenging in some instances because not only were they big, they were also going through some very hard and difficult timbers. For instance, I cut the lap on the short scarf piece you see below - not only was the piece small enough to move A LOT when hit with an axe, it was also fairly dry and full of knots. That is an axe-cut scarf joint - v cool.
Seeing these guys work together to notch this curved piece for the doorway was incredible:
Massive joint for one of the ties (I think; I didn't work on this section):
Here's one of the A-frames being laid out. Not a very technical process as you can see, but still very accurate:
Shavehorse station for the million pegs that need to be made:
At the end of the day we would sometimes go on excursions to local barns/buildings, these were always fascinating. One of the barns had part of its floor laid with chunks of end grain - very unusual. Almost looks fake!
And of course carpenters' marks throughout the buildings were always interesting to see. This one was in a barn-cum-marketing office. It was a very surreal meeting of worlds as 25 dirty framers wandered around this smart office.
And finally, some rather cool signs of a guest in one of the timbers...
Next up will be the raising of the frame, that takes place at the beginning of July. Should be fun.
Basically, the foundations for a similar hall dating back to that period were discovered and so they have decided to recreate it on-site, to the best of their knowledge of the original at least.
I figured I'd post about it as some of you may find it interesting - I sure did. Aside from enjoying the making side of things, it was worth it for the wealth of knowledge a lot of these guys have alone.
Here's a rendering (courtesy of the CF) of the final design:
Uncut timbers. These were all hand hewn in the previous phases :shock:
Most of my time was spent chopping mortice and tenons for the enormous plates, a slow process with a mortice axe but one that can give surprisingly accurate results.
Once the mortices were done, we moved onto tenons and lap joints. The laps were particularly challenging in some instances because not only were they big, they were also going through some very hard and difficult timbers. For instance, I cut the lap on the short scarf piece you see below - not only was the piece small enough to move A LOT when hit with an axe, it was also fairly dry and full of knots. That is an axe-cut scarf joint - v cool.
Seeing these guys work together to notch this curved piece for the doorway was incredible:
Massive joint for one of the ties (I think; I didn't work on this section):
Here's one of the A-frames being laid out. Not a very technical process as you can see, but still very accurate:
Shavehorse station for the million pegs that need to be made:
At the end of the day we would sometimes go on excursions to local barns/buildings, these were always fascinating. One of the barns had part of its floor laid with chunks of end grain - very unusual. Almost looks fake!
And of course carpenters' marks throughout the buildings were always interesting to see. This one was in a barn-cum-marketing office. It was a very surreal meeting of worlds as 25 dirty framers wandered around this smart office.
And finally, some rather cool signs of a guest in one of the timbers...
Next up will be the raising of the frame, that takes place at the beginning of July. Should be fun.
